The Bean Blog

Showing off my mad Photoshop skillz

Nov 7, 2008 Dude, you're gettin' an 'A'

One of the best things about being a college student is…being able to buy the Adobe Creative Suite for around $400 instead of the full $1200 price. Ok, sure there are other good things about school. There’s the learning. And sense of accomplishment. And the fact that a degree helps you get a good job. But really, the best things is student discounts. Can I get a “hell ya?”

So anyway, a few years ago I used that totally awesome discount to buy CS2. I was giddy with anticipation as I waited for Adobe to ship it off to me. I diligent tracked it’s whereabouts on the shippers website. And the second my mailman delivered it I ripped the packaging apart and installed the software on my PC.

And then I sat there.

It never occurred to me that I didn’t really know how to actually use any of the programs in the software package. I had heard all these great things about it, but I had never actually used it before. And it’s a little daunting to be staring at all these buttons and menus and tabs. I was lost.

So for a year I used Photoshop to crop my pictures. And that was it. $1200 program to crop. Sounds like a good financial decision (even if I did get it for just $400).

Eventually I got a little braver. I started to make pictures brighter or add a little contrast (even though I really had no clue what it meant to add contrast). I even used a filter or two to make my picture look a little funky.

Then, by the fate of the gods (or maybe it was more desperation to find a class than fate, but still) I registered for a Digital Imaging class at school. The class required us to take a bunch of digital images (imagine that…in a digital imaging class) and manipulate them in Photoshop. The recommended book for the class was Scott Kelby’s The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers. I didnt buy it at first. After all it was just a recommendation. Plus, as we’ve already discussed, I already had some mad Photoshop skillz.

Within the first week we started to learn about color correction. And it was as if the heavens opened up, the angels sang and the sun shown down on me. Wholly mackerel can a photo look fabuloso after some little color correction adjustments in Photoshop. I was sold. I bought the book that day. And I continue to use it as my Photoshop bible every day. [Well that and the upgraded The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers I bought when I got CS3 last year. That Scott Kelby is a Photoshop god.]

Which brings me to last night. We are now entering digital photography in my Photo I class. So last night we had our first discussion about Photoshop. Our instructor went around the room (there are only 9 of us in the class) to see if anybody had ever used Photoshop. I was the only one. He asked me if I new a lot about Photoshop. I didn’t want to toot my own horn so I said I know some.

Well it turns out, even though I still consider myself to be an amateur Photoshop user, I’m really a pro…at least at school. I knew things even my teacher didn’t know. First, my heart broke a little when he didn’t have anybody use layers. They were just piling filters and adjustments on top of their background layer. And if they screwed up he had them use the history tab to go back and delete. I know. Can you imagine? I’m pretty sure I was physically shaken by this.

Then one girl wanted to keep her flower and bug in color, but turn the rest of the photo black and white. I don’t know what he had her do, but she was using the brush tool to manually change parts of each picture to black or shades of gray. I almost gasped. Out loud. I sat down with her, told her to lasso her flower, select, inverse, turn it black and white and viola, she was done.

It was a little stressful though. I hate to be the center of attention. Hate it. I’m a much better wall flower. But here were all these people asking me for help. And I actually knew the answers (which is so darn rare). I was nervous that without my Photoshop bible I would look like an idiot stumbling for answers. But I whipped out those Photoshop suggestions as if I had Scott Kelby on speed dial on my Blackberry.

So now I have a whole new sense of confidence in my Photoshop abilities. Bring on the photographs.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tags: digital photography, Photoshop, Scott Kelby